"You're a cute little thing, Winifred Bartlett," he sneered, with a malicious glance from the girl to Carshaw, while a coarse guffaw imparted venom to his utterance. "Think you're taking an easier road to the white lights, I guess?" "Guess again, Fowle," said Carshaw. He spoke so quietly that Fowle was misled, because the pavement rose and struck him violently on the back of his head. At least, that was his first impression. The second and more lasting one was even more disagreeable. When he sat up, and fumbled to recover his hat, he was compelled to apply a handkerchief to his nose, which seemed to have been reduced to a pulp. "Too bad you should be mixed up in this disturbance," Carshaw was assuring Winifred, "but a pup of the Fowle species can be taught manners in only one way. Now, suppose you hurry home!" The advice was well meant, and Winifred acted on it at once. Fowle had scrambled to his feet and the policeman was running up. From east and west a crowd came on the scene like a well-trained stage chorus rushing in from the wings. "Now, then, what's the trouble?" demanded the law, with gruff insistency. "Nothing. A friend of mine met with a slight accident--that's all," said Carshaw. "It's--it's--all right," agreed Fowle thickly. Some glimmer of reason warned him that an expose in the newspapers would cost him his job with Brown, Son & Brown. The policeman eyed the damaged nose. He grinned. "If you care to take a wallop like that as a friendly tap it's your affair, not mine," he said. "Anyhow, beat it, both of you!" Carshaw was not interested in Fowle or the policeman. He had been vouchsafed one expressive look by Winifred as she hurried away, and he watched the slim figure darting up half a dozen steps to a small brown-stone house, and opening the door with a latch-key. Oddly enough, the policeman's attention was drawn by the girl's movements. His air changed instantly. "H'lo," he said, evidently picking on Fowle as the doubtful one of these two. "This must be inquired into. What's your name?" "No matter. I make no charge." Fowle was turning away, but the policeman grabbed him. "You come with me to the station-house," he said determinedly. "An' you, too," he added jerking his head at Carshaw. "Have you gone crazy with the heat?" inquired Carshaw. "I hold you for fighting in the public street, an' that's all there is to it," was the firm reply. "You can come quietly or be 'cuffed, just as you like. Clear off, the rest of you." An awe-stricken mob backed hastily. Fowle was too dazed even to protest, and Carshaw sensed some hidden but definite motive behind the policeman's strange alternation of moods. He looked again at the brown-stone house, but night was closing in so rapidly that he could not distinguish a face at any of the windows. "Let us get there quickly--I'll be late for dinner," he said, and the three returned by the way Carshaw had come.